DIY Activity Advent Calendar

I love the Christmas season. It is so fun and exciting. One of my favorite traditions growing up, was counting down to Christmas. We always had those chocolate advent calendars. This year I wanted to try something different with my kids so I made a DIY scratch off advent calendar.

This Christmas countdown is filled with fun activities (and some family traditions) to do during the month of December.

The best thing about this calendar, aside from how simple it is, is that you can totally customize it. You can put whatever activities or family traditions you want to. I will list some ideas you can use.

Advent Calendar Activities

1. Bake Christmas cookies
2. Watch a Christmas movie
3. Go ice skating
4. Decorate the tree
5. Make hot cocoa
6. Make paper snow flakes
7. Camp in living room with sleeping bags
8. Christmas puzzle
9. Christmas karaoke
10. Look at the lights
11. Gingerbread house
12. Make an ornament
13. Roast marshmallows at the fire place/ homemade s’mores
14. Deliver treats to someone
15. Play pictionary or charades
16. Play a board game
17. Have a marshmallow fight (use jumbo marshmallows, this is great if you don’t get snow)
18. Make Christmas cards
19. Go sledding/tubing (did you know you can go tubing without snow?)
20. Build a snowman
21. Decorate Christmas stockings
22. Read the nativity story
23. Get photos with Santa
24. Make reindeer food
25. Make treats for a friend/neighbor/extended family member

How to make the DIY Scratch Off Advent Calendar

This is beyond simple. I purchased my Christmas tree cardboard calendar from the Target dollar spot area. I can’t find it online, so they may not have any left. But, it’s okay because I can tell you how to make your own.

First, on white card stock draw a large Christmas tree. Use a circle shaped item, like a quarter or nickel to trace 24 circles on the tree for the ornaments. In each ornament, write down an activity.

Then, take these scratch off stickers and place them over each ornament. The ones I linked are gold, but they make silver ones too. These are 1 inch circles, so they are quarter sized.

Here is a star shaped scratch off if you choose to add an advent activity to the star like I did.

Each day leading up to Christmas, just scratch off a day and do the activity. Simple.

Tips:

Just a tip, take a picture of your advent BEFORE you add the stickers so that you know which days are which. With kids in school, we like to save the bigger activities for the weekends or Christmas break, so it’s helpful to know where those ones are on the advent.